Hey! It’s been a crazy month. My first novel came out! I did a bunch of cool stuff online and in public! And afterwards… I hit a bit of an emotional slump (what they call the “post-pub blues,” or if they don’t, they should), and now I’m writing another book, or trying to!
Thank you to everyone who spread the word, boosted, read, reviewed, ordered, or otherwise supported this little book o’ my heart. It has meant the world to me.
If you have a chance to rate and review When Franny Stands Up on Amazon or Goodreads, that would be just the most boss. I say this as a hypocrite who rarely reviews things! But those reviews matter. And one of my New Years’ resolutions is to get better about reviewing things I’ve liked.
Speaking of things I’ve liked…
Top Five List of Five Things I’ve Liked In 2022 that You Might Also Like
Is it too early to do a best-of list? Fuck it, let’s be naughty together.
This ended up being a year of the uncategorizable book for me. Of the fragmented and non-traditional, the moving and funny, the scary and strange. If that sounds fun to you, you might like my five favorite books this year (in no particular order):
Search History by Eugene Lim
The Trees by Percival Everett
The Drowned Life by Jeffrey Ford
Human Blues by Elisa Albert
Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
My five fave movies & TV this year:
Everything Everywhere All At Once — I respect a story that crams everything into it all at once, this is my preferred storytelling method too
RRR — Everything I wanted out of a movie but didn’t know it (I also got to see it in person at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago and holy hell, if you can see this with other people, DO IT)
One Cut of the Dead — Don’t you dare read a single thing about this movie before you see it
Russian Doll — Someone once told me I look like Natasha Lyonne, and I plan to mention this at every possible opportunity until the day I die
Midnight Run — Okay fine I’ve watched this one a million times, but I love it more every time. It is perfect. And just to throw this out there:
Let me be frank — I’m a Jew who loves Christmas. I love it! I have no beef with Xmas! Give me all the hot booze and twinkly lights and medieval songs about pudding or whatever and holy restfulness and clove-scented shit. Here are this Jew’s five favorite Xmas things this year:
This specific eggnog recipe (I make it every year, no one has died yet!)
LED color-changing Xmas lights with remote (game-changer - you can change the color of your tree to fit your mood!)
The movie Christmas in Connecticut (maybe my favorite??)
The Monkees Christmas album (not being ironic, I swear)
Jólabókaflóðið — The Icelandic tradition of buying books as gifts and reading together on Xmas Eve ugh why is Iceland the best
Top five social media platforms I’ve signed up for, hated, and abandoned since Twitter got shitty(er): Mastodon, TikTok, Hive, Post, Discord. As much of a mixed bag of venomous snakes as Twitter has always been, it had a substantial impact on my writing career, my exposure to different cultures and communities, and my understanding of current events. And I know I’m not the only one. I’m glad to have a big piece of my attention back, but it still feels like a loss! That said, you can still occasionally find me on Twitter.
Five best New Years’ Resolutions I’ve committed to and then immediately abandoned over the years:
Avoid sugar (lol)
Keep a journal (oops)
Be less ambitious (…)
Translate a French novel into English (I am not fluent)
Wear more bowties (not even once)
Bonus lewd animal fact (just one, don’t be greedy):
Like many gross deep-sea animals, the anglerfish female is a LOT bigger than the male. Like… 60 times bigger. The males sniff out the female from across the lightless expanse of the deep sea (they have, I just learned, the largest nostril-to-head ratio of any animal on earth), BITE her in the gut, and then FUSE with her, co-opting her circulatory system and everything. You do have to wonder why this whole rigamarole happens, though, since after all that melding, they each shoot sperm and eggs into the water and like, just hope for the best? They don’t even stick around to see what happens? Nope, they swim away, fused together for the next 30 years.
Thanks for reading, and if you like the cut of my jib, won’t you subscribe and share?
I hope you come back to Mastodon. The rest of the social media can go to hell.